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CHAPTER THIRTEEN,
heartfelt.
━━━━
Nicole was at a juxtaposition with herself. She wanted to stand and fight - protect her family at all costs - but the other part of her wanted to sneak off and go get her daughter from a town with a deranged lunatic. She wanted her daughter back more than anything, but when Rick walked back in from cooling off, her ideas went straight out of the window because then, she had to focus on Rick. Rick strolled back in, joining Daryl, Hershel, Michonne, Glenn, and Nicole in a small huddle at the corner of the cellblock.
“The field is full of walkers,” Rick informed. “I didn’t see any snipers, but we’ll keep Maggie on watch. We’ll take shifts after that.”
Nicole watched as Daryl bit his thumbnail out of habit while she raked back her hair. “Nik an’ I could get into the guard tower and take out half these walkers,” Daryl suggested, placing his hands on his hips. “Give these guys a chance to fix the fence.”
“Or we can use some of the cars to put the bus in place,” Michonne offered.
“We can’t access the field without burning through our bullets,” Hershel sighed, leaning into his crutches.
“So we’re trapped in here,” Glenn concluded in annoyance. “There’s barely any food or ammo.”
“He’s right,” Nicole chimed in, leaning back onto her good ankle. “We have less than three days if we all eat - maybe a week if we spread it out.”
Daryl shook his head. “We’ve been here before. We’ll be alright,” he said, removing his nail from his mouth. Nicole knew he was right. After the farm, they had nothing but the clothes on their backs and a few cans of food. They’d survived this before, but it was different now.
“That was before we had a newborn,” Nicole whispered out. “And before Hershel had one leg.”
“And before we had a snake in the nest,” Glenn snapped, angrily.
Daryl turned toward Glenn, glaring at him with all of his might. Nicole knew Glenn wasn’t over the incident at Woodbury - hell, she wasn’t over it - but it was what it was. There was nothing anyone could do about it now. Merle wasn’t the easiest person to be around - he had beaten Glenn shitless and allowed Maggie to be in the hands of that sick man. She knew that if he had the chance, he’d kill Merle without hesitation. Daryl, on the other hand, was not having it. “Man, we gonna go through this again?” the redneck snarled. “Merle’s staying here. He’s with us now. Get used to it.” With that, Daryl stormed off, not even allowing Nicole time to try and calm him down. Nicole watched as he stormed up the stairs, muttering to himself in anger. She could help but roll her eyes and pinch the bridge of her nose in frustration.
